Cruising from Venice to Buenos Aires....

On the wharf in Venice, four bags, two backpacks and a new adventure in front of us.  South America!

We lined up our bags in the proper line and put the tags we were given on them.  For the first time we were traveling in an inside cabin … because it was inexpensive of course and our bags weren’t going to receive any priority.  We were prepared for this.

Check in was done efficiently and only took about 40 minutes.  We boarded and decided to have a drink in one of the bars before heading up for lunch.  Our first shock was the price of the drinks.  We’d cruised before but hadn’t seen prices like this.  Our second shock occurred at lunch.  The food was awful at the buffet and there was no lemonade or iced tea with which to hydrate yourself.  Searching for something to drink, like say …..  juice, we discovered what had happened to the world’s supply of Tang.  MSC Cruise Line had bought all of it!  No matter what flavor you asked for it was yellow.  Oh boy!

Our next disappointment was that the ship had no observation bar.  What?  We always sip some exotic, stupidly sweet drink while we watch the ship sail out of the port.  Apple vodka martinis have been my choice.  This particular ship couldn’t even make one.  A quick and efficient lifeboat drill and we were off.

About six hours after boarding and four hours after sailing, two of our four bags showed up (they were left haphazardly outside our cabin door).  We wandered down to dinner where our waiter fouled our order (there were only three choices) and the food was, well, less than ordinary.  We were astonished, this was an Italian cruise line!

We returned from dinner …. still missing two bags in the cabin.  Where were the damned things?  We found ourselves on the observation deck, leaning against the rail in the cold windy weather watching the spectacular trip from the port in Venice, through the islands to the open sea.  Thought I would catch pneumonia.  Returning to our small but adequate room, we found our bags in front of our cabin door.  Only ten hours after checking them in.  We went to sleep sure that tomorrow would bring a fresh outlook.

Breakfast at the buffet was, well, terrible.  We won’t do that again.  What to do today?  First task, sign up for internet service.  It cost what??????  Minimum 50 euro plan was for 120 minutes of internet access.  No wireless in the cabins - you could rent a cable if you did not bring one for only another 10 euros.  There were two or three areas in the ship that had wireless access but you still had to buy one of the expensive plans in order to use it.  We went a head and got a minimum plan because we knew we would need access at some point.  

After that trauma it was off to a bar for a late morning pick me up.  We find that they don’t have half of the things listed on the drinks menu …. and won’t have  during this cruise.  The prices of the drinks were worrying as well but, salvation is at hand.  The ship offers drink packages and we bought three packages of twelve; one for bottled water, one for juice (they had three or four flavors to choose from) and one for beer (two or three choices as well).  This would save us some money!

Wandering around the ship we discovered that most of the bars were actually show lounges.  Not our thing but we were told the entertainment was pretty good.  This was going to be boring for us in a hurry.  Definitely geared for the sedentary crowd.  We checked out the gym.  The limited number of machines were filthy and crowded.  An exercise ball?  What’s that?

Our television worked but the remote had no batteries in it.  Our lamps had no shades and we thought that was normal until a week into the cruise they suddenly appeared.  Hmmm.  The blanket on our bed was a little threadbare and was replaced several days into the cruise as were the batteries for the remote.  Well, we were going to be in Malta the next day so we’ll just make the best of it.

We thought we’d take a shore excursion in Malta and booked one without really knowing what it was.  The shore excursion booth was generally unoccupied and when it was manned, the person manning it really didn’t know anything about the excursions, they just took the orders.  There seemed to be a trend here.  We dressed for dinner and met our table mates for the first time.  Turns out we were the only Americans on this ship of 3,000 passengers and we sat with an expat Englishman who lived in Switzerland with his Belgian wife who was very unsure of her English language.  Lovely couple and we enjoyed several evenings with them although we sampled the wine list up and down finding nothing but mediocrity to our mutual frustration.

Malta was wonderful although the shore excursion in Mdina moved a little slowly and we found ourselves wandering off to find a local café for some coffee and pastries Malta style.

  Returning to Valetta the shore excursion picked up a bit and allowed us a little more free time, in fact, we were able to leave them and walk back to the ship on our own schedule. 

We found Malta to be as lovely as we remembered from our previous trip there and were delighted to absorb the stunning amount of history this little island nation can boast.

The next day we discovered that during breakfast the other passengers, consisting mostly of Italians, Brazilians and Argentinians, did not inhabit the gym.  In fact they proceeded directly from breakfast to the pool area.  Now we knew when we were going to work some of the softness we’d acquired during our lazy summer in Spain but, although we were feeling a little out of shape we sure did see plenty of “that person is old enough to know better” swimwear on this particular voyage.

On our fourth day after another “at sea” day the shipped docked at Barcelona.  We liked having the gym almost to ourselves and the pool deck was a little less crowded when we were in a port. Interestingly, many of the passengers never did not get off the ship.  We were starting to understand that this cruise line operated for passengers that like to shop, sunbathe and watch lounge entertainment.

We did finally realize that paying several hundred euros for an unlimited drink package was actually the best way to go if one intended to drink a little bit and didn’t want to go bankrupt.  These packages included beer, wine, cocktails, juice, specialty coffee, and ice cream so we purchased two.  For the rest of the cruise we tried our best to beer, espresso, juice and ice cream the ship to death (we needed to get our money’s worth).

There was one haven on the ship though.  Surprisingly it was the cigar bar.  This bar was open around the clock and while fully half of the pool deck was open to smokers this room was the only indoor smoking area on the ship.  The bar had a powerful but quiet air exhaust system that really kept the place from being too smoky and many people liked being there.  The furniture was comfortable and the conversations engaging.

Here we met Augie and Marcus from Salzburg, Austria.  We also met Narush from Serbia and Marie, also from Austria.  The usual attendant was Neer from Nepal and he provided some of the best service on the ship.  It quickly became the place to meet for a drink before dinner and of course, a place to enjoy a drink and a cigar after.

We didn’t have any interest in Casablanca, Morocco having been there before and seen the sites, and we  decided that the nearly 12 hour round trip for an hour with our friend Wahdi in Marrakesh was just not worth the travel time so we didn’t get off the ship again until Tenerife.  Sitting in a café enjoying a tapa and a drink with Marcus and Augie we realized that the previous Thursday, when the ship was docked in Barcelona, had been Thanksgiving.  Wow!  It had completely passed us by and turkey was definitely something we missed!

We left Tenerife, in the Canary Islands in the late afternoon and began the long, six day Atlantic crossing with nothing but the ship to entertain us.